Paris 2024: Is Hosting The Olympics Worth It Anymore?

Interestingly, this is the first time two host cities have been announced at the same time, normally there is a four year wait between each winning city being announced to the world. Another unique development within both these bids is that Paris and LA will primarily rely upon existing infrastructure and stadia for their games, instead of building new, expensive Olympic stadiums and athlete villages.

There’s a simple reason for this, where once the Olympics, run by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), could easily handpick the best bids, the tables are now turning and they are having to adapt to a new reality. Previously, would-be host countries bid on the assumption that the games would boost their local economy significantly, no longer however.

A public prosecutor has even gone as far as to say that there was “no planning” post-Olympics in Rio.

These buildings, built for very specific reasons now have no tenants or income, with Brazil’s federal government having to pay for all the maintenance costs, including 3,604 apartments in the athletes´ village. A public prosecutor has even gone as far as to say that there was “no planning” post-Olympics in Rio.

Increased focus on existing infrastructure: As mentioned above, the upcoming Olympics in 2024 and 2028 will be quite unique as they will rely on existing stadia and infrastructure, which both Paris and LA are lucky to have in place already. Many future Games will follow this model to minimise the huge costs associated with building facilities from scratch.